Victory in Las Vegas!! Gordon Ryan and craig jones were on fire last night in Las Vegas at the Quintet Ultra grappling tournament. The show featured some very interesting match ups. Mr Ryan took on the fascinating MMA grappler from Russia, Sambo expert Aleksei Oleinik – master of the no gi Ezekiel stranglehold. He quickly entered the legs and back stepped into a nice leg lace. Normally we would finish with an inside heel hook from this position, but heel hooks were illegal in this tournament so he opted for a knee bar finish instead – an easy conversion from this extremely controlling and versatile position. Craig Jones took on old school Jiu Jitsu legend, Fredson Paixao – master of wristlocks. He showed the incredible gains he has made in back control/hand trapping training with the squad and quickly secured a fine stranglehold for the win! It is interesting and beneficial for us all to experiment with variations in rule sets as this forces us to emphasize different aspects of the game that we might normally pass over and as a result, continue to make technical progress. Ask yourself tonight what would you do if you were not allowed to use your favorite finishing move for the next week? What alternative would you play from that same position? I promise you that if you experiment with this you will be a more knowledgeable martial artist by the weeks end
